We document the coexistence of ferro- and anti-ferromagnetism in pyrochlore Yb2Ti2O7 using three neutron scattering techniques on stoichiometric crystals: elastic neutron scattering shows a canted ferromagnetic ground state, neutron scattering shows spin wave excitations from both a ferro-and an antiferro-magnetic state, and field and temperature dependent small angle neutron scattering reveals the corresponding anisotropic magnetic domain structure. High-field ⟨111⟩ spin wave fits show that Yb2Ti2O7 is extremely close to an antiferromagnetic phase boundary. Classical Monte Carlo simulations based on the interactions inferrred from high field spin wave measurements confirm ψ2 antiferromagnetism is metastable within the FM ground state.
@article{arxiv.1912.04913,
title = {Multiphase Magnetism in Yb2Ti2O7},
author = {A. Scheie and J. Kindervater and S. Zhang and H. J. Changlani and G. Sala and G. Ehlers and A. Heinemann and G. S. Tucker and S. M. Koohpayeh and C. Broholm},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.04913},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
11 pages and 11 figures, 8 pages appendices with 10 additional figures